3 great services to help rid yourself of nerdy crap

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Steve Jobs action figure
If you actually have one of these unproduced Steve Jobs figurines, maybe don't sell it. Photo: in icons

Scott Dadich, editor-in-chief of Wired, recently dispatched a chilling memo to his worker bees about keeping their San Francisco hive clean. Among other things, Dadich bemoaned the “dorm room” look of the office.

“It’s an embarrassment,” he opined in his overwrought missive, which was leaked to The Awl. “Coffee stains on walls (and countertops and desks), overflowing compost bins, abandoned drafts of stories and layouts (full of highly confidential content), day-old, half-eaten food, and, yes, I’m going to say it, action figures. Please. WIRED is no longer a pirate ship [emphasis added].”

Whether you work at Wired or not, you have no shortage of options if you’re suddenly in a panic to sell your old nerdy crap (or buy all-new nerdy crap — take that, Mr. Boss Man). While you might be tempted to go straight to Craigslist or eBay, those sites can be unpredictable or leave you vulnerable to murder. Here are three alternatives if you want to ditch your excess junk and prefer to keep your guts where they are.

DASH action figure marketplace
DASH can help you unload even unboxed action figures. Screengrab: Evan Killham/Cult of Mac

Dash Marketplace

If you have a bunch of action figures or die-cast cars collecting dust, Dash Marketplace is a great place to unload. You get your own, distinct storefront, and it doesn’t take long to toss up your listings. It’s free to use, but if you pay the $15 premium, you also gain access to a price guide that will offer you some direction on how much to charge.

Dash also has https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/action-figure-collector/id357957081?mt=8&uo=4&at=10l3Wi” target=”itunes_store>a handy iOS app that lets you easily upload pictures of your offerings. You set your own prices and shipping costs, and you can even choose between a flat sale price or an auction. Once you make a sale, the money (minus the site’s 7 or 8 percent fee) goes into your PayPal account.

It’s an easy site to use with a lot of flexibility, and it’s not hard to find new homes even for the figures you’ve removed from the box. I’ve sold 45 items here, and it’s been pretty painless.

Glyde marketplace
Let the tasteless puns begin. Screengrab: Evan Killham/Cult of Mac

Glyde

Tasteless joke-inspiring name aside, Glyde is the most user-friendly and convenient service on this list. It’s a site that will help you unload video games you don’t want (that’s what I’ve used it for), but you can also use it to sell off phones, tablets, e-readers and old iPods.

Unlike DASH, Glyde’s price guide is built right in: When you look up the thing you want to get rid of, it’ll present you with a market price and a slider that will let you go a few bucks above or below the average cost. It’s a little restrictive because you can’t set your own price, but the suggestions usually feel pretty fair.

The best feature, though, is that once you sell something, Glyde will send you a prepaid shipping kit. So all you have to do is wait for that to show up, plunk your game or gadget into it, and then toss it back in the mail. You don’t have to find a box or ball up newspapers or anything.

Amazon marketplace
You can sell basically anything on Amazon. Screengrab: Evan Killham/Cult of Mac

Amazon Marketplace

You’ve probably heard of this little site that sells a thing or two, but Amazon also has an easy-to-use individual marketplace where you can sell basically anything that the main site offers. It also has a convenient iOS app that lets you scan your items’ bar codes to quickly add them to your inventory. You can set your own prices, and you get a little extra to cover shipping. And if you don’t want to deal with the post office all the time, you can choose to have Amazon fulfill your orders for you.

This is probably not the best place to list those opened Star Wars figures you’ve had sitting on your desk for years, but I’ve sold a lot of used games and in-box items here. You have the advantage of Amazon’s massive amounts of traffic to get more eyes on your products, and you can easily look at what other people are doing so you can price competitively.

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